The inexperienced Chuuk girls had their highest score of the tournament when they bowed out against a much stronger RMI team.  Averaging just 16 years of age, the Chuuk team have competed to the very best of their ability throughout the tournament and will go home with lots of ideas to work on for the future.  RMI advance to the semis.

RMI and Chuuk men had a right royal battle up to half time with the Marshallese always able to counter every surge by the Chuuk team.  The scoring for Chuuk was mostly left to the tournament leader in Eddy Nifon who managed to rack up 24 points for the game.  RMI had more consistency and spread in their scoring power and this was the major difference at the end of the game as RMI ran out winners by 79-63.

The Kosrae/Guam men’s game did not live up to expectations as Kosrae had a dismal first half scoring only 16 points to Guam’s 38.  From there the game was never in doubt and Guam moved on to 5 wins from 5 games to lead all teams.  With a final score line of 81-49 it was simply a practice session for Guam and they were able to rest some of their injured players.   

After recording their first win of the tournament the night before, Team Palau came out firing with tight defence to counter the taller Pohnpei team in the first quarter to have a 7 point lead.  This they managed to repeat this in the second quarter and at the half they led by 49-36.  For Pohnpei big man Tomasi Mawi and guard Kelvin Sam had 13 points.  Palau coach Johnny Kintaro urged his players to step up their scoring to make up for top scorer Raymond Watson who was injured and Arnold Undecimo with 20 and Sunshine Soalablai and Gino Smau with 16 each did just that.  Palau ran out winners by 79-61.

Today is women’s semi-final day and Palau meet CNMI at 11.00am with Team Guam taking on RMI at 1.00pm.  It  is the final day for the men’s division round robin and Kosrae play Pohnpei at 3.00pm to decide a possible semi berth, while Guam seem certain to beat CNMI at 5.00pm.  Team Palau will look to try for a remote possibility of reaching the semis by beating Chuuk in the 7.00pm game.